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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Cookbook watch - greek and cookies

Alexandra Pascalidou
Min Stora Feta Grekiska kokbok

I like cookbooks written by journalists. After all, my first cookbook love was Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess, and my infatuation with her writings - and her food - continues. I also really like cookbooks by food bloggers, who are also experienced food writers - and I'll certainly much rather read these than cookbooks by chefs. (As for what I'll actually cook, or eat - well, that's not quite as simple.) Alexandra Pascalidou is Swedish-Greek (well, she's really Greek, but grew up in Sweden) and has written a lovely book about Greek food called "My big fat greek cookbook". It holds recipes - tons of them - and stories. I usually don't really like stories in my cookbooks (where's the food?!) but Pascalidou's writing is so good I don't mind. In fact, I found myself flipping pages, going past the food, to get to the next story. They're that good. The one about her grandmother made me cry. And after I dried my tears, I knew I wanted to cook a LOT from this book. It has that genuine feel about it, and you can just tell that the recipes are without a doubt going to work.

Claes Karlsson
Kladdiga kakor

"Oooh, what's that?" My husband immediately reached for the book I was unpacking from the mail, and demanded it for himself. It's pastry chef Claes Karlsson's latests - Kladdiga kakor, which translates to Sticky Cakes. A Swedish "kladdkaka" is something like a brownie, but this book expands greatly on the subject, and includes every sort of sticky cake you could imagine. And some that you probably couldn't. I love the retro look of the cover, and am drooling over recipes like meringue cake with milk chocolate truffle and strawberries - I mean, seriously?? I have to make that. And a lot of other things. This is a great book for the yum-lovers out there!

5 comments:

Claes Karlsson writes good cook books (or baking books really). One with chocolate and nut-recipes and another with apples are magnificent! I was looking at this one yesterday and wondering if I was to get it or not.